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<DIV class=left><A href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><IMG
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<DIV class=timestamp>September 2, 2011</DIV>
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<H1><NYT_HEADLINE version="1.0" type=" ">A Bad Call on
Ozone</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
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<P>President Obama’s decision not to proceed with stronger air-quality standards
governing ozone is a setback for public health and the environment and a victory
for industry and its Republican friends in Congress. </P>
<P>In a terse, three-paragraph statement Friday morning, the president said he
did not want to burden industry with new rules at a time of great economic
uncertainty, and he pledged to revisit the issue in two years. But since the
proposed rules would not have begun to bite for several years, his decision
seemed driven more than anything else by politics and his own re-election
campaign. </P>
<P>Ozone is the main component of smog, a leading cause of respiratory and other
diseases. The standards governing allowable ozone levels of ozone in communities
across the country have not changed since 1997. In 2008, the Bush administration
proposed a new standard that was a good deal weaker than the recommendations of
the E.P.A.’s science advisers and were promptly challenged in courts by state
governments and environmental groups. </P>
<P>This summer, Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency, sent a new and stronger standard to the White House — igniting a fierce
lobbying campaign by industry groups asserting that the standards would require
impossibly costly investments in new pollution controls and throw people out of
work. Industry has made these arguments before. They almost always turn out to
be exaggerated. </P>
<P>The president sought to assuage Ms. Jackson by reminding her that a host of
other environmental rules approved or in the works — including mandating cleaner
cars and fewer power plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants — would do
much to clean the air. All true. But there is still no excuse for compromising
on public health and allowing politics to trump science.
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>__________________________________</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Verdana>Wayne A. Fox<BR><A
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